The Contentment of River Song
by digitalfletch
Summary: River Song had always hated mornings. But this time, things were different. Set post-THoRS.
Ever since she could remember, River Song had hated mornings.

Even after the longest and most passionate of nights in the arms of the version of the Doctor who was even skinnier than this grey-haired one, she inevitably woke to an empty bed. He was always to be found in the console room, with silent apology laying in the coordinates that would return her to her prison.

Worse still were those rare mornings when he hadn't come at all and she woke alone in her cell, dreading another day spent without him with only her diary and the endless rain for company. Counting the seconds until darkness fell and she could see him again.

Yes, the nights were theirs, and she would always, always, love him for that. Yet the days that followed were inevitably so cold and empty that she quickly learned to steel herself against the deceptive hope and false promise of the dawn the same way she learned to always carry a gun – protectively, in self-defense.

But this morning (according to her internal, circadian time) she had awoken to something that a woman far less cynical and more reverent than herself would have called a miracle – a steady, rhythmic _thump-thump thump-thump_ under her ear, the unmistakable double beat of her husband's hearts.

This time, after she had fallen asleep in a haze of post-coital bliss, he had stayed.

She slowly raised her head, searching out his beloved face.

He was leaning his head back against the headboard. His keen blue eyes were open and he was gazing down at her, his expression full of such warmth and unbridled affection that she felt the joy of it suddenly singing through her blood.

He was here. He was with her. Not out of a sense of guilt or responsibility, or to preserve the timelines, or to save the universe from destruction. But because he had chosen to be.

She leaned up on one elbow to capture his lips with hers. To her delight he responded instantly, his mouth merging with and melting into her own. The sweetness of the touch sent a delicious heat that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature spreading through her from head to toe.

She bit back a moan and reluctantly released his lips. Wanting for once to prolong the transition from achingly tender to intensely passionate, despite feeling the familiar undercurrent of yearning for him, deep in her core, that had been her constant companion throughout all the years she'd known him. There was time. For once, there was plenty of time.

She had read the stories, the tales that told of their last night together on Darillium. And on those rare moments when she'd been able to bring herself to contemplate its duration, of course she had hoped for longer than twenty-four hours. Never in her wildest imagination had she dreamed of twenty-four _years_.

 _Twenty-four years._

Gratitude and wonder swelled her heart at the memory of his whispered words, sweeter than any declaration of love or desire. Those sentiments were for other people, people smaller than them.

Blinking against the sudden, unexpected burn of tears, she pressed a searing kiss just over his dextral heart and laid her head back down on his shoulder once more. Brushed her fingertips lightly over and across his chest, wordlessly reveling in the fact that she could.

His arms tightened around her and she pressed herself even closer against his side, burrowing against him like a drowsy kitten. She was wonderfully, bonelessly relaxed, and the feel of the slow rise and fall of her husband's chest beneath her cheek was more luxurious than the finest pillows in all of Hydroflax's palaces.

Even her normally restless mind was quiet for once. Tranquil and calm, like the surface of a moonlit lake.

At rest. At peace.

Peace.

Contentment.

 _Belonging_.

River Song had only previously been familiar with those terms in an abstract, intellectual sense. But now, for the first time in her long life, she understood precisely what they meant.

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End file.
